The Meaning of Collective Terrorist Threat: Understanding the Subjective Causes of Terrorism Reduces Its Negative Psychological Impact

This article hypothesized that the possibility to construct intellectual meaning of a terrorist attack (i.e., whether participants can cognitively understand why the perpetrators did their crime) reduces the negative psychological consequences typically associated with increased terrorist threat. Concretely, the authors investigated the effect of intellectual meaning (induced by providing additional information about potential economic, cultural, and historical reasons for the terrorist attack) on perceived terrorist threat and associated emotional well-being. Study 1 revealed that pictures of terrorist attacks elicited less experienced terrorist threat when they were presented with background information about the terrorists’ motives (meaning provided) rather than without additional background information (no meaning provided). Study 2 replicated this effect with a different manipulation of terrorist threat (i.e., newspaper article) and clarified the underlying psychological process: Participants in the high terror salience condition with meaning provided experienced less terrorist threat and thus more emotional well-being in the face of crisis than participants in the high terror salience condition without meaning provided. Theoretical and practical implications in the context of psychological health and mass media effects are discussed

Toward an integrative Social Identity model of Collective Action: A quantitative research synthesis of three socio-psychological perspectives.

An integrative social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) is developed that incorporates 3 socio-psychological perspectives on collective action. Three meta-analyses synthesized a total of 182 effects of perceived injustice, efficacy, and identity on collective action (corresponding to these socio-psychological perspectives). Results showed that, in isolation, all 3 predictors had medium-sized (and causal) effects. Moreover, results showed the importance of social identity in predicting collective action by supporting SIMCA's key predictions that (a) affective injustice and politicized identity produced stronger effects than those of non-affective injustice and non-politicized identity; (b) identity predicted collective action against both incidental and structural disadvantages, whereas injustice and efficacy predicted collective action against incidental disadvantages better than against structural disadvantages; (c) all 3 predictors had unique medium-sized effects on collective action when controlling for between-predictor covariance; and (d) identity bridged the injustice and efficacy explanations of collective action. Results also showed more support for SIMCA than for alternative models reflecting previous attempts at theoretical integration. The authors discuss key implications for theory, practice, future research, and further integration of social and psychological perspectives on collective action

Creativity is collective

Psychologists and other commentators have always treated creativity as the ultimate expression of human individuality. However, to fully understand creativity we need to look beyond the individual: Groups and social context give creativity both form and force

Abstract

Integrating the social identity and aging literatures, this work tested the hypothesis that there are two independent, but simultaneous, responses by which adults transitioning into old age can buffer themselves against age discrimination: an individual response, which entails adopting a younger subjective age when facing discrimination, and a collective response, which involves increasing identification with the group of older adults. In three experimental studies with a total number of 488 older adults (50 to 75 years of age), we manipulated age discrimination in a job application scenario and measured the effects of both responses on perceived health and self-esteem. Statistical analyses include individual study results as well as a meta-analysis on the combined results of the three studies. Findings show consistent evidence only for the individual response, which was in turn associated with well-being. Furthermore, challenging previous research, the two responses (adopting a younger subjective age and increasing group identification) were not only theoretically, but also empirically distinct. This research complements prior research by signaling the value of considering both responses to discrimination as complementary rather than mutually exclusive

Greater number of group identifications is associated with healthier behaviour: evidence from a Scottish community sample

Objectives: This paper investigates the interplay between group identification (i.e., the extent to which one has a sense of belonging to a social group, coupled with a sense of commonality with in-group members) and four types of health behaviour, namely physical exercise, smoking, drinking, and diet. Specifically, we propose a positive relationship between one's number of group identifications and healthy behaviour. Design: This study is based on the Scottish portion of the data obtained for Wave 1 of the two-wave cross-national Health in Groups project. 1824 patients from 5 Scottish General Practitioner (GP) surgeries completed the Wave 1 questionnaire in their homes. Methods: Participants completed measures of group identification, group contact, health behaviours and demographic variables. Results: Results demonstrate that the greater the number of social groups with which one identifies, the healthier one’s behaviour on any of the four health dimensions considered. Conclusions: We believe our results are due to the fact that group identification will generally i) enhance one's sense of meaning in life, thereby leading one to take more care of oneself, ii) increase one's sense of responsibility toward other in-group members, thereby enhancing one’s motivation to be healthy in order to fulfil those responsibilities, and iii) increase compliance with healthy group behavioural norms. Taken together, these processes amply overcompensate for the fact that some groups with which people may identify can actually prescribe unhealthy behaviours

Dynamic, Not Stable:Daily Variations in Subjective Age Bias and Age Group Identification Predict Daily Well-Being in Older Workers

This work examines the hypothesis that older workers' responses to negative events at work depend, in part, on daily fluctuations of subjective age bias (SAB; how old people feel compared to their actual age) and age group identification (age GI). We tested whether SAB and age GI fluctuate over time, whether they influence attributions of negative daily work events as age-related, and thereby predict older workers' daily affect and cognitive engagement in their work. A diary study with 169 older workers (aged 50-70 years) demonstrates that there are substantial daily variations in SAB and GI. Daily fluctuations of SAB and age GI respectively predicted attributions of negative personal (e.g., forgetfulness) and social (e.g., social exclusion) work events to age. Age attributions, in turn, negatively predicted affect and daily cognitive engagement over and above event occurrence. In other words, when confronted with negative daily work events, the short-term dissociation from one's chronological age and age group (i.e., feeling younger and identifying less with other older adults) seems to benefit older workers' well-being